The Vision Training Program at Harvard Medical School seeks to train excellent students in molecular biology and related disciplines while preparing them to enter the field of vision at some later point in their careers. Students enter the Vision Training Program through two interdepartmental umbrella programs at HMS, the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) Program and the Neuroscience Program. Students take the curriculum required of their respective programs and learn about the visual system in two ways: (1 ) They are required to take an introductory course, Genetics 214: Biology of the Visual System, taught by several faculty of this training grant (and others) whose primary research interest is vision. As part of this course, the students design a research proposal aimed at understanding or treating a disease of the visual system; (2) The students organize and attend a monthly seminar series, "Molecular Approaches to Vision", in which an outside speaker visits HMS and gives a seminar to the HMS community. The students invite the speakers to have lunch and dinner with them. [unreadable] The students are supported for five years on this grant in order to maximize exposure to vision. By the end of their period of support, most students will have attended approximately 50 seminars on vision at HMS, met with and discussed the research of these 50 speakers, read approximately 25 papers on vision in Genetics 214, and researched a disease of the visual system and written a proposal aimed at furthering our understanding of such a disease. The students trained within this program will have the tools to make progress in our understanding of vision system disease and treatments [unreadable] [unreadable]